


undercover lover

by biggrstaffbunch



Category: Hawkeye (Comics), Marvel (Comics), Winter Soldier (Comics)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-12
Updated: 2014-05-12
Packaged: 2018-01-24 12:40:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1605557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/biggrstaffbunch/pseuds/biggrstaffbunch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They’re at a Denny’s in the middle of fucking nowhere and it’s 4 AM and Kate's trying not to punch Bucky Barnes in his stupid face.</p>
            </blockquote>





	undercover lover

They’re at a Denny’s in the middle of fucking nowhere and it’s 4 AM and Kate's trying not to punch Bucky Barnes in his stupid face.

"So," she starts, in what she thinks is actually a super reasonable tone of voice but might, if Clint was around, be classified as  _shrill_ , “What was that?”

Bucky grins and steals a hash brown from her plate. “That was a funeral,” he says, trying for solemn but achieving, mainly, shit-eating.

Kate gives Bucky the side-eye. She swats his hand as he reaches for another hash brown.

“Okay, see, I saw way, way, wayyyy too much penis for that to have been a funeral,” she informs him, taking a mutinous bite of the hash brown herself.

“We were mourning the death of my bachelorhood?” Bucky tries. He looks sadly at his bowl of oatmeal, then at Kate.

Kate arches a brow, unmoved. That’s what he gets for acting holier than thou and ordering _oatmeal_ at  _Denny's_ : food envy.

“Good explanation," she says. "Now say that with a straight face." She spears a big forkful of pancake and chews obnoxiously.

Bucky struggles manfully with himself for a moment before giving up and spooning a lumpy pile of oatmeal into his mouth. 

“Come on, Kate," he says. "Couples share food. If we’re going to pretend to be engaged, we might as well strive for authenticity." He peeks out from under his lashes, sneaking covetous looks at Kate’s plate.

Kate frowns and points her fork at him. “Keep looking at my Grand Slam and you’re gonna _authentically_  have my boot up your ass,” she says darkly.

Bucky glares at the threat. Kate takes a defiant bite of pancake drenched in syrup.

"I’m not afraid of you," she declares. "You could've blown cover tonight. We're supposed to be getting married and I had to bail you out of an  _orgy_.”

Bucky waves a hand. “That wasn’t an orgy,” he says, with the air of someone who knows. Kate gives an unimpressed look. 

"Not an orgy, huh. Were they filming, like. I dunno, a reality show? Stepford Wives Gone Wild?" She makes a note to tell Clint that one, he'd probably laugh. Probably.

Bucky, however, just looks dour. Although that could be more about the sludge currently congealing in his sad little bowl. 

"It was perfectly above level, Kate," he says. The oatmeal bubbles; he looks a little alarmed.

Kate narrows her eyes. "When I got there, you were in a hot tub and there was a _lot_ of—" she wiggles her fingers, the edge of hysteria sneaking back into her voice, "—nakedness."

"I was skinny dipping," Bucky says, distracted by the pat of butter that Kate's spreading over a piece of perfectly browned toast. He makes a show of sighing, letting oatmeal drip gloopily off his spoon. Kate rolls his eyes; for an ex-assassin, he sure is a manbaby sometimes.

She tries not to feel like too much of a soft touch when she slides her plate of bacon towards him and his eyes light up.

"So, walk me through this," she says suspiciously. "Mr. and Mrs. Next Door throw you a bachelor party and you end up stripping down to your skivvies. But _I_ can't get you to change your shirt in the same room as me. Man, what's even the point of being fake engaged?"

She hopes for her dignity that she sounds at least a _little_ like she's joking. (She's not.)

"I was trying to  _blend in_ ," Bucky says loftily. "People tend to reveal a lot more about their potentially dastardly plans if they're naked."

Kate...doesn't touch that one.

"Good thinking," she says, though from Bucky's face, he can probably tell she means, like, the opposite of that. "What happened to spur the fifteen million texts you sent me begging for a rescue?"

Bucky makes a face. “The latex cover for my arm,” he explains, showing her the spots where the material tore. “I was gonna get made, so I needed to get out of there. But they kept wanting  _one_ more beer,  _one_ more glass of champagne. Apparently the custom around these parts is to get blind drunk before a wedding and try to have sex with the groom.”

Kate accidentally stabs her pancake.

Oh. Like, she'd seen all the, the--nudity. Not tough to extrapolate intent from there. But having it _confirmed_ that some busty Betty Crocker wannabe was crawling over Bucky, touching and cooing and come-hithering even though he's practically _married_...

One of her fork twines bends in half.

“Well,” Kate says after a moment, voice overly pleasant. “Good thing your fiancee got there in time, huh?”

Bucky nudges her foot with his, cracking a small grin. “Yeah,” he says. “You saved my ass. Starting to turn into a habit for you, huh?”

Hmph.

Kate swallows, determined to ignore how it feels like she’s got something bright and heated, a little cluster of the sun, expanding inside her chest at his words. Especially because that nice feeling is kind of at odds with the image lasered into her mind's eye: Bucky, completely in the buff, sitting in a cheap outdoor hot tub surrounded by a group of people who are either secret HYDRA operatives or the world's most evil swingers club, looking stunned as some frosted-hair housewife writhes away in his lap.

Stab. Stab. Stab. Another chunk of pancake pulverized. 

"Kate," Bucky says. "You okay?"  He glances speculatively from her fork to her face.

Oops. Caught. Kate sighs, deciding to own it. 

“Speaking as your fake fiancee," she says, well aware of how ridiculous she sounds, "I feel like, like—letting someone who could be an evil evildoer who evils just…dance a naked cha-cha on your lap... It’s kinda cheating in more ways than one.”

Bucky cocks his head like he’s puzzling out her meaning, like she's said something very silly and he's trying to put reason behind her words. Sometimes, Kate hates how he can make her feel like an equal and a child all at once.

"You're jealous," Bucky says finally, in disbelief. Kate fights the urge to throw toast at his head.

"Am I," she says sardonically, and what she really means is _Of course I am_ _, you’re really hot and you got naked for someone other than me and it’s pissing me the fuck off._

They hold gazes for a moment, the air growing thick and warm between them, the lines on Bucky’s face going soft. Unwillingly, Kate's eyes slip to Bucky’s mouth, his lips.

Which curve into a slow smile, something small and knowing.

"If it at all helps," Bucky says. "You don't have to be. I think the neighbors got the message loud and clear when you came in with that longbow strapped to your back."

Kate folds her arms. She doesn't appreciate being teased about her longbow. It's a sensitive issue.

"What message?" she asks, slightly pouting. 

Bucky nudges her foot with his again.

"That I'm a taken man," he says. Voice quieter, more serious. Slightly hesitant.

And for a second, Kate imagines that to be true. Imagines Bucky in the hot tub again, only this time instead of someone with leopard-print nails and a bad dye job, it's Kate in his lap. Kate, twining her hands through his hair, kissing him messy and sure. Kate, breath catching as she rides him slow until all he can do is arch up helplessly, fingers digging into her hips. 

Her skin floods with heat and she barely leashes a whimper. Bucky's eyes darken.

"Taken, huh?" Kate asks, her voice mostly even. She rakes a hand through her hair. The overhead light glints off the engagement ring on her finger, and Bucky's expression turns the tiniest bit rueful.

"Well," he says. "I guess I didn't realize till now that I really could be."

Kate makes a noise. "Seriously?" she asks. "For someone so old and wise, you're a real dummy." and he really, really is. She's been gone for him since she met him years ago. Not to mention that even before they went undercover, Kate feels like her face actually screamed  _mine mine mine_ whenever she looked at him. 

"You're hard to read," Bucky says, so, oh. Okay. Maybe Kate's face isn't the two year old tantrum-thrower she thought it was.

Kate drums her fingers on the table. "It's not every guy who comes my way that gets ogled like you," she says, because who needs dignity at this point?

Bucky squints. "Yes it is," he says. "Yesterday, you called the crossing guard a silver fox."

" _He's distinguished_ ," Kate says loudly. "Anyway. The point is. Maybe only _half_ of the reason I wanted to bludgeon you with your own shoe was because it's really stupid to get into naked shenanigans with suspected supervillains." She bites her lip. "Maybe the other half is because if you're getting into naked shenanigans with anyone, it should be  _me_."

Bucky looks amused, then intrigued. "Yeah?" he asks. He reaches over, experimentally twining his fingers with hers. And he doesn't even try to steal her last piece of sausage. 

Kate squeezes his hand.

"Yeah," she says. "So I know you've been making eyes at my omelet for the past ten minutes, but. Do you want to maybe go home?"

Bucky's grin is a revelation, challenging and wondering and happy all at once. There's even a hint of a leer. Kate identifies with that leer whole-heartedly.

"Okay," he says. "Maybe this time I'll take my shirt off in the same room as you."

Kate leans close. "Promises, promises," she says.

 

|

 

Later, SHIELD will end up having to field approximately 20 noise violation and public indecency complaints from the Neighborhood Watch.

Kate and Bucky consider the mission pretty much a success.

**Author's Note:**

> based on a tumblr prompt by vstahl :) since it's over 1K, i thought i'd make it into its own story, but it is very brief, so sorry about that!


End file.
